By the Wellness Directory of Minnesota
Summary: A great primer on how cancer cells feed and what they will do to the body in order to get the glucose they must have to survive. “Knowing that…cancer needs sugar, does it make sense to feed it sugar?” the authors ask. “Does it make sense to eat a high-carbohydrate diet?” This article is a great complement to Patrick Quillin’s “Cancer’s Sweet Tooth,” also available in the these archives. From the Wellness Directory of Minnesota, 1995.
The following is a transcription of the original Archives document. To view or download the original document, click here.
Cancer Loves Sugar
Every doctor learned back in medical school all about Otto Warburg’s discovery, a discovery of humongous proportions, because way back in the 1950s Otto discovered the main biochemical cause of cancer—or what differentiates a cancer cell from a normal, healthy cell. So big a discovery was this that Otto Warburg was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine in 1931.
[Photo of Otto Warburg, with caption:] “Cancer has only one prime cause. It is the replacement of normal oxygen respiration of the body’s cells by an anaerobic (i.e., oxygen-deficient) cell respiration.”—Dr. Otto Warburg[spacer height=”20px”]But what else does Warburg’s discovery tell us? First off, it tells us that cancer metabolizes much differently than normal cells. Normal cells need oxygen. Cancer cells despise oxygen. In fact, oxygen therapy is a favorite among many of the alternative clinics we’ve researched.
Another thing this tells us is that cancer metabolizes through a process of fermentation. If you’ve ever made wine, you know that fermentation requires sugar. Also, the metabolism of cancer is approximately eight times greater than the metabolism of normal cells.
So here is what we can put together knowing the above: The body is constantly overworked trying to feed this cancer. The cancer is constantly on the verge of starvation and thus constantly asking the body to feed it. When the food supply is cut off, the cancer begins to starve—unless it can make the body produce sugar to feed itself.
The wasting syndrome cachexia is the body producing sugar from proteins (you heard it right: not from carbohydrates or fats, but from proteins) in a process called glycogenesis [sic; gluconeogenesis]. This sugar feeds the cancer. The body finally dies of starvation, trying to feed the cancer.
Now, knowing that one’s cancer needs sugar, does it make sense to feed it sugar? Does it make sense to have a high-carbohydrate diet?
The reason food therapies [for cancer] even exist today—beyond the fact that they work—is that someone once saw the connection between sugar and cancer. There are many food therapies, but not a single one allows many foods high in carbohydrates, and not a single one allows sugars, because sugar feeds cancer.
Why doesn’t your physician tell you this? Hard to tell. Maybe your doctor feels it is his job to cure your cancer, not yours. Maybe because your doctor learned about Warburg but never put the rest together, never placed nutrition into the equation. Maybe because your physician didn’t study nutrition. Heck, as late as 1978, the American Medical Association’s official position (stated in courts of law) was that nutrition had nothing to do with health or disease.
However, those who’ve paid attention to this sugar-craving-cancer stuff have come up with some remarkable therapies for cancer. Laetrile [an extract of apricot seeds] is just one. Hydrazine sulfate, which stops the process of glycogenesis in greater than 50 percent of all patients with cachexia, is another.
Today, at the University of Minnesota. they are experimenting with a [type of] chemotherapy delivered in a “smart bomb.” Here’s the scoop. The drug is wrapped in a coating that stays intact as it travels through the body, that is, until it reaches a location of no oxygen. When it reaches this “no oxygen” location, the coating falls apart, releasing the chemotherapy to destroy the cancer—because the only place in your body where there is no oxygen is the cancer site.
Then there are the food therapies aimed at starving cancer. Knowing what cancer loves, the patient avoids them. Cancer loves cooked foods (this is a relatively recent finding), and cancer loves sugar. If you hate your cancer, then starve it.
Author unknown. The Wellness Directory of Minnesota (now the International Wellness Directory), 1995.
